New year stabbing spree highlights ‘knife crime culture’

A 20-year-old man was fatally stabbed in Memorial Avenue, West Ham, on New Year’s Eve. He was one of four to die in stabbings in London within 24 hoursLuke Mintz/Press Association

The murders of four young men in unrelated stabbings across London at the turn of the year were “truly unusual and extraordinary”, Craig Mackey, the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has said.

Men aged 17, 18 and 20 were killed on New Year’s Eve and a 20-year-old man was killed in the early hours of the following morning. A fifth man is critically ill in hospital. A 19-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder over the New Year’s Day attack at a house party in Islington, and five men have been arrested in connection with the death of the 18-year-old in Enfield.

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